This article will examine the role of imperial maps, Christian mission, shared memories and collective consciousness in the formation of Mizo identity. Arguing that imperial maps, supposedly based upon objective European science, were meant to suit specific purposes and were laden with deeper agendas, this article will maintain that other aspiring maps also depicted conflicting claims to territory and overlooked specific details rather than giving factual descriptions. This article will look at how borders and boundaries thus constructed have actual impacts (...) upon the people, places and spaces they divide and include. It will particularly deal with the aspirations of the Mizo Christians who embraced Christianity during the colonial period, and how they are ‘in India’ but often feel ‘not of India’, and will interrogate the Biblical and historical dimensions of their mental maps. (shrink)

Rifamycin is a clinically useful macrolide antibiotic produced by the gram positive bacterium. Amycolatopsis mediterranei. This antibiotic is primarily used against Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium leprae, causative agents of tuberculosis and leprosy, respectively. In these bacteria, rifamycin treatment specifically inhibits the initiation of RNA synthesis by binding to β‐subunit of RNA polymerase. Apart from its activity against the bacteria, rifamycin has also been reported to inhibit reverse transcriptase (RT) of certain RNA viruses. Recently, rifamycin derivatives have been dis‐covered that are (...) effective against Mycobacterium avium, which is associated with the AIDS complex. Consequently, the importance of and demand for rifamycin has increased tremendously, the world over. In this article, recent trends in rifamycin research and accessability of recombinant DNA techniques to increase rifamycin production are reviewed. (shrink)

Many in both developed and developing countries fear global economic integration. But developing‐country fears of volatile capital flows are unfounded, as are developed‐country fears of pauper wages due to low‐cost imports. Demands for “ethical trading” are as misplaced as the fears of Third‐World cultural nationalists that globalization will destroy their valued ways of life.

Articles on the philosophy of history and historiography.

One of the first philosophers to relate Indian philosophical thought to Western analytic philosophy, Jaysankar Lal Shaw has been reflecting on analytic themes from Indian philosophy for over 40 years. This collection of his most important writings, introduces his work and presents new ways of using Indian classical thought to approach and understand Western philosophy. By expanding, reinterpreting and reclassifying concepts and views of Indian philosophers, Shaw applies them to the main issues and theories discussed in contemporary philosophy of language (...) and epistemology. Carefully constructed, this volume of his collected writings, shows the parallels Shaw draws between core topics in both traditions, such as proper names, definite descriptions, meaning of a sentence, knowledge, doubt, inference and testimony. It captures how Shaw uses the techniques and concepts of Indian philosophers, especially the followers of the Navya-Nyaya, to address global problems like false belief, higher order knowledge and extraordinary perception. Exploring timeless ideas from Indian thought alongside major issues in contemporary philosophy, Shaw reveals how the two traditions can interact and throw light on each other, providing better solutions to philosophical problems. He has also reflected on modern issues such as freedom, morality and harmony from the classical Indian thought. Featuring a glossary and updates to his writings,The Collected Writings of Jaysankar Lal Shaw: Indian Analytic and Anglophone Philosophy also includes new work by Shaw on the relationship between Indian and analytic philosophy today. (shrink)

This article is a Gadamer-Perelman's debate. The author points out the limits of the gadamerian's hermeneutic conception of philosophy and criticizes this conception from Perelman's new rhetoric point of view. Instead of speaking of truth as an ontological originary experience, the rhetorical foundation of philosophy allows us to say that in philosophy the important is the contrastation and the confrontation of criteria and that, for that reason, philosophy is above all characterized by discussibility.

During these five war years science has proclaimed and demonstrated its role as Hercules. It has employed as its loudspeaker the bursting bomb, and as its courier the swift vehicle. Its blows have been instantly lethal.Next, science has shown its skill as the fabricator of useable goods. And, lastly the giant has revealed some of its mild and even compassionate moods as the binder of man's mortal wounds and the healer of his fevers and mental abberations.

Though the resurgence of Hindu nationalism as a political phenomenon is well-understood, Meera Nanda is correct in suggesting that the ascendancy of Hindutva has other dimensions, such as the avent placed by cultural nationalist on 'Vedic science'. However, apart from this rudimentary insight, Nanda's contribution, far from being a resounding demonstration of potmodernism's complicity in the projects of Hindu nationalism, is a striking testament to her own commitment to a rigidly positivist, ferociously intolerant, and intellectually sterile conception of modern science (...) and the Enlightenment rationality which she views as the pinnacle of human achievement. Nanda displays an impoverished understanding of the scholarly contributions of the last three decades and is unable to countenance the idea of a plurality of sciences; at the same time, in veiw of her deliberate conflation of Hindutva with Hinduism, and her attempts to equate Hinduism as such with Nazism, it is clear that Hinduism itself stands condemned, and not merely resurgent Hindu nationalism. Nanda's book is an indiscriminate and uninteresting assault upon the innumerable enemies of reason, and it is, ironically, likely to have the result of further eroding confidence in self-proclaimed champions of rationality such as herself and the modern science of which she claims herself to be a true and peerless inheritor. (shrink)

Reviving the Invisible Hand is an uncompromising call for a global return to a classical liberal economic order, free of interference from governments and international organizations. Arguing for a revival of the invisible hand of free international trade and global capital, eminent economist Deepak Lal vigorously defends the view that statist attempts to ameliorate the impact of markets threaten global economic progress and stability. And in an unusual move, he not only defends globalization economically, but also answers the cultural and (...) moral objections of antiglobalizers. Taking a broad cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach, Lal argues that there are two groups opposed to globalization: cultural nationalists who oppose not capitalism but Westernization, and "new dirigistes" who oppose not Westernization but capitalism. In response, Lal contends that capitalism doesn't have to lead to Westernization, as the examples of Japan, China, and India show, and that "new dirigiste" complaints have more to do with the demoralization of their societies than with the capitalist instruments of prosperity. Lal bases his case on a historical account of the rise of capitalism and globalization in the first two liberal international economic orders: the nineteenth-century British, and the post-World War II American. Arguing that the "new dirigisme" is the thin edge of a wedge that could return the world to excessive economic intervention by states and international organizations, Lal does not shrink from controversial stands such as advocating the abolishment of these organizations and defending the existence of child labor in the Third World. (shrink)

In what follows, I question anger’s value for social activism and discourse. I focus on two little discussed aspects of anger. I argue that these aspects reflect problematic philosophical understandings that may be more serious than perhaps most events which are thought to give rise to anger. I will also argue that the functional value of anger is (at best) questionable given the role other, less damaging, human emotions are capable of playing in producing good outcomes. Additionally, I argue that (...) one need not deny the functional value of anger altogether to reject its overall importance for motivating moral action. (shrink)

Bellʼs 1964 theorem causes a severe problem for the notion that correlations require explanation, encapsulated in Reichenbachʼs principle of common cause. Despite being a hallmark of scientific thought, dropping the principle has been widely regarded as much less bitter medicine than the perceived alternative—dropping relativistic causality. Recently, however, some authors have proposed that modified forms of Reichenbachʼs principle could be maintained even with relativistic causality. Here we break down Reichenbachʼs principle into two independent assumptions—the principle of common cause proper and (...) factorization of probabilities. We show how Bellʼs theorem can be derived from these two assumptions plus relativistic causality and the law of total probability for actual events, and we review proposals to drop each of these assumptions in light of the theorem. In particular, we show that the non-commutative common causes of Hofer-Szabó and Vecsernyés fail to have an analogue of the notion that the common causes can explain the observed correlations. Moreover, we show that their definition can be satisfied trivially by any quantum product state for any quantum correlations. We also discuss how the conditional states approach of Leifer and Spekkens fares in this regard. (shrink)

In this essay. I explore questions pertaining to ‘radical’ acts of forgiveness as they relate to considerations of duties and justice. I will survey recent examples and show a possible philosophical basis for understanding them in terms of self-duty. Thus I will try to show that a little noticed basis exists for understanding acts of radical forgiveness as morally required (and not simply admirable or reserved for the saintly). I argue both that considerations of self-duty can provide a secular basis (...) for justifying radical acts of forgiveness and that problems associated with this kind of forgiveness and justice are not as serious as they are often taken to be. (shrink)

Different aspects of their thoughts have been systematised, categorised and placed under suitable philosophical heads in this work.

Category theory has become central to certain aspects of theoretical physics. Bain has recently argued that this has significance for ontic structural realism. We argue against this claim. In so doing, we uncover two pervasive forms of category-theoretic generalization. We call these ‘generalization by duality’ and ‘generalization by categorifying physical processes’. We describe in detail how these arise, and explain their significance using detailed examples. We show that their significance is two-fold: the articulation of high-level physical concepts, and the generation (...) of new models. 1 Introduction2 Categories and Structuralism 2.1 Categories: abstract and concrete 2.2 Structuralism: simple and ontic3 Bain’s Two Strategies 3.1 A first strategy for defending Objectless 3.2 A second strategy for defending Objectless4 Two Forms of Categorical Generalization 4.1 Generalization by duality 4.2 Generalization by categorification 4.3 The role of category theory in physics5 Conclusion. (shrink)

This paper is about the rationality of methodological variance, where changes in method and methodology of science may be warranted/triggered by the urgency of finding alternatives to the methodology currently in fashion that fails to address the relevant and pressing problems. It deals obliquely with Maxwell‘s criticisms of Pandit, offering only a bare sketch of appraisal of his methodological proposals of AOE, AOR and WI, not only as going beyond SR but as better alternatives to dominant methodologies such as that (...) of Karl R. Popper, without rehearsing or recycling Maxwell‘s well-known arguments in great detail. More importantly, how these proposals improve upon the eighteenth century Enlightenment idea of learning from scientific progress how to achieve social/cultural progress towards an enlightened world, i.e., a world that is sensitive to problems of living and human well-being, is discussed. Having dealt with such problems in Pandit, the present appraisal is limited to the rationality of understanding, or better of rethinking, academic inquiry within the wider contexts and reaches of wisdom inquiry, with particular reference to the pressing global problems including those problems that are traceable to ETS progress, which is itself often found to violate the principle of interconnectedness across nature. (shrink)

Although recognized as one of the principal sources of inspiration for the Indian environmental movement, Gandhi would have been profoundly uneasy with many of the most radical strands of ecology in the West, such as social ecology, ecofeminism, and even deep ecology. He was in every respect an ecological thinker, indeed an ecological being: the brevity of his enormous writings, his everyday bodily practices, his observance of silence, his abhorrence of waste, and his cultivation of the small as much as (...) the big all equally point to an extraordinarily expansive notion of ecological awareness. (shrink)

Like the dominant moral philosophers in the Western tradition, Mahatma Gandhi reaches moral conclusions that emphasize universality, impartiality, and detachment. This is in apparent contrast to feminist philosophers who have put forth a scheme for reaching moral conclusions that gives centrality to feeling, experience, and interdependence. In the following, I show that Gandhi shares significant agreement with feminists in spite of the kinds of moral conclusions he reaches. The crucial difference between Gandhi and the feminist critics lies in how the (...) distinctiveness of the other is understood. For Gandhi, I show, that the distinctiveness of others which evokes our affection is significant only in so far as it is a starting point that aides us in reaching the highest form of moral concern—a kind of agape (unselfish love for all). (shrink)

On the activities of the Indian Philosophical Congress and its role in the development of philosophy in India.

What do our studies of Gandhi tell us about the current crisis of health and politics in the US? The crisis intersects growing realization of the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on poor communities of color with general resistance to policing tactics and policies that are widely considered exercises of systemic racism. One significant response to this situation has been the “defund the police” movement, pressing for systemic institutional change in policing. However, for us, defund is not so much about (...) weakening the state sector. Instead, it is about strengthening community participation in planning decisions about how public funds might be reallocated, not to pay for more tactical gear for cops but more social workers, community investments, and so on. (shrink)

After decades of service to The Acorn, editor Barry Gan--who received the journal from founding editor Ha Poong Kim--has passed the responsibility along. We are happy to announce that the editorial and business office of The Acorn has found a new home at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies of Texas State University. For more than a decade, The Acorn has been affiliated with a society that we have recently renamed the Gandhi, King, Chavez, Addams Society (GKCAS). The new (...) name adds Cesar Chavez and Jane Addams to the short list of role models that the society seeks to honor through scholarly study, but the short list is not intended to be exclusive. As a result of reorganization and transition we are adopting a new subtitle of the journal as follows, The Acorn: Philosophical Studies in Pacifism and Nonviolence. (shrink)

In our feature presentation, “Mahatma Gandhi’s Philosophy of Nonviolence and Truth" Douglas Allen explicates central Gandhian values and concepts in a way that gives readers a kind of ‘one stop’ source for appreciating Gandhi’s nonviolence. In an author-meets-critics dialogue, Court Lewis, author of Repentance and the Right to Forgiveness, defends and clarifies his argument that wrongdoers have a right to forgiveness. Our reviews in this issue invite comparative analysis: Philip J. Rossi’s book on The Ethical Commonwealth in History; a collection (...) of essays on Tolstoy and Spirituality; the third volume of The Selected Papers of Jane Addams; George Monbiot's Out of the Wreckage; and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s book, As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance. (shrink)

Various aspects of Sir Muhammad Iqbal's philosophy, particularly the impact of Indian influence on it.